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Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores what happens when we grasp Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes not as 'pest' or 'invasive' but as the companion species we deserve in the Anthropocene. Self-domesticating dengue mosquitos continually trouble Singapore's efforts to create wild futures of a 'City in Nature'.

Paper Abstract:

What might the tale of Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes self-domesticating themselves to urban Singaporean homes trouble notions of wild/domestic and the promise of biodiverse cities?

Following Aedes Aegypti’s more-than-human-histories we find that, as these once wild insects moved from East to West Africa in the 16th to 17th Century, they got caught up in the violence of the triangle trade, domesticating themselves along the way to human habitats and developing a thirst for human blood on slave ships. The mega project connecting two seas, the Suez Canal, then allowed them to hitch a ride to Asia, settling in most of the tropics at the turn of the 20th century. Yet, they only really began to proliferate in Singapore in 1960s, as a result of mass urbanisation and a warming climate. As the habitats of other species were wiped, much like rats, this highly anthropophilic species moved in, preferring people's homes. Thus, beyond labels of ‘pest’ and ‘invader’ Aedes Aegypti may well be the companion species we deserve in the Anthropocene, deeply interwoven with violent human activities.

And as Singapore strives to become a 'City in Nature', efforts to create a wilder more biodiversity city are constantly troubled by the persistent presence of these domestic mosquitoes and the suite of diseases they carry with them.